Suppliers

Pedigree pork – helping keep rare breeds alive

Pig breeders Donald and Mary Shere from Oakridge Farm near Bampton specialise in Oxford Sandy and Blacks and supply us with our pork.

The breed is amongst the oldest British Surviving Rare Breeds. It produces superb pork with an amazing flavour of its very own.

Donald says: “It’s wonderful to think that our little farm is making a big difference in the conservation of this beautiful pig. Thanks to customers, like Paul and Donna, their team and diners at The Swan, who appreciate quality, we are able to continue in confidence and keep producing ‘proper tasty pork’ for all to enjoy.”

Happyhens, delicious eggs

Our eggs come from the family-run Exe Valley Eggs near Stoodleigh where hens roam freely during the day in fields above the Exe Valley. The farm is inspected to RSPCA welfare standards by the organisation’s independently certified farm assurance scheme.

The business was established more than 25-years-ago. Apartnership between John and Mandy Widdowson and John’s in-laws Brian and Gay Grimston.

John says: “We were one of the first farms to recognise the benefits of providing hens with overhead outdoor cover, which gives them the confidence to range more freely. This provides them not only a healthier lifestyle, but a chance to enrich their diet from natural pasture.

“When the hens do go indoors they have the best of feed and facilities including large, straw-strewn scratch areas where they can continue to do what hens like best.”

The Butcher Shop, Bampton

The Butcher Shop, which is owned by nearby farmer John Wescott, represents all that is great about locally reared and sourced meat.

It provides the joints for our popular Sunday roasts and a whole host of other products. You can’t get any fresher or tastier produce than stuff reared nearby. What’s really important about local butchers is they can provide provenance for all the items they stock. They really are experts. The selection changes each week as they react to supplies that come in.

The beef, lamb and pork comes from selected local farms, including the Wescott’s own farm. The meat travels less than 30 miles to the local abattoir near Taunton ensuring the smallest possible carbon footprint.

John says: “We have a mixed livestock farm only four miles away from the shop. To allow us to produce lambs for sale throughout the year, we lamb some ewes around Christmas and the main flock in March and April. The cows mainly calve in the spring to our Beef Shorthorn bull called Arni and are winter housed away from the worst of the weather.”